THE LADY AND THE UNICORN 253
Stephen stood in the gap where the gate had
been; inside it was silent, bare, utterly desolate^
he could not trace where the drive had been, the
porch, or the garden. One cassia tree still stood^
close to him, and the wind moved its branches
mournfully as though someone sighed.
The sound of wheels swept by him. There must
be an echo, he thought,, but his car was blocking
the street and the wind of the hooves and the
passing wheels went through his hair, and it was
as if that phantom passage had left him melancholy
and with a great foreboding,
In the stillness he heard sobbing, and scarcely
breathing, his blood tingling, he stepped near to
where the porch had been and the last pillar stood.
There was a shadow of blue, and the wind in the
solitary tree still sobbed, and as he looked the
shadow moved, with a violet bloom like blue silk
stained by moonlight, and a little dog gambolled
out from the pile of brick, the plumes of its tail
blown backward by the wind.